Welcome to another Super Sunday Smilefest! The rules are simple:
1. Follow me in some way.
2. Write a post that tells about what made you smile this week.
3. Share your post (just one per week) in the linky at the bottom.
4. Go visit a few other people and enjoy their sharefest too!
Link up at the bottom of the post.
Here we go!
When I started riding in 2009, I quickly realized competing with a horse was not for me. Too many factors to make us both nervous, way too expensive and time consuming and the silly outfit you have to wear just sealed the deal for me.
And for all this time, I've proudly said that I don't compete. Shows are not for me. I don't need to pay money to get a ribbon.
And then my "home barn" had a show and I just couldn't resist. All of the factors fell into place:
-it's where we ride so no trailering would be necessary and it's familiar ground
-it wasn't too expensive since we didn't have to actually go anywhere
-I could wear whatever I wanted!
That last one might have been what made me do it. When I refer to the outfit you wear, I'm talking about tan pants, tall boots and that navy blue tailored coat with a white shirt. Way too much of a get up for 80 degree weather.
And I don't own any tan pants right now.
Some shows just require tan pants and a colored short sleeved shirt but I don't have that either!
When she said it's just a casual show with no restrictions, I decided to do it.
There are 2 parts: flatwork and jumping. In the flatwork, it's like dressage, where you have letters on signs around the ring and you have to do certain things at certain letters. Like walk at C, trot at B, canter at F, cross the diagonal and when you get to M do the same thing in the other direction at L. Something like that.
A lot of people freak out that it's too many things to remember and too hard to know what to do where. You're given the course ahead of time and you just have to remember what to do. Since r-ster used to do this kind of thing A LOT in my lessons, this was a no sweat category for me. Like I could teach this, it's such a normal course of events for me.
And then there's jumping. 12 inches, 18 inches, 2 feet- 2.3 feet, 3 feet or something like that, which is way higher than I will do right now. And each of those is called a "class". After each class, you can participate in what she calls Jackpot Jumper where you have 45 seconds to cleanly jump as many thing as you can, your choice.
You pay for every "class" that you do. That's where a show can really get expensive.
I chose to do one flatwork class and one jumping class.
I have a video of the flatwork but I didn't put it on youtube yet because our internet is ridiculously slow right now.
I do have the jumping class, but I warn you, it's the sloooooooooowest jumping course you will ever see. I had to go over 8 jumps, a prescribed course, and I could take as long as I needed. I took a liiiiiiitle longer than what would be normal but that's how I remained in control. I learned that if this was a serious show, I would have been disqualified because on some of my circles, I went past the jump I was going to do next, and that would have been considered refusing the jump.
If you have 3.5 minutes, watch this video. I'm pretty happy with how cleanly he went over every jump. If you know about jumping, you will see my very novice mistakes which I am working on!
Oh and those are 18 inch jumps. For the jumps that are Xs, the center of the X is 18 inches tall. For the wooden thing I jump over at #7, the top of that is 18 inches.
And so, for my jumping class and flatwork class, this is what I we got:
I feel a little silly as an adult getting excited about first place ribbons in a horse show, but it was pretty exciting. Even if the competition pool wasn't very large.
Smiles all around for my first show with Jackson! And yes, I plan to do a couple more "home" shows but no, I AM NOT going to get all gussied up and put him in a trailer and pay a fortune to go somewhere else.
NO WAY.
After seeing this post about storage bins, I decided to give it a try and make one of the round buckets. I wanted something to hang below my saddle rack where I can put some things. The math is right on and I was really pleased with how it came together. I've made two more since, a little shorter, and without a strap. You can see my post here.
I wanted something kind of tall for the one I made, but it was too tall to really stand by itself. The next two that I made were only about 6 inches tall and slightly smaller in diameter, so they are holding their shape much better.
As my aunt walked by this afternoon, she took a picture of the roses from my front yard. These are idiot proof roses that have been here longer than I've been alive. They are "wild" roses in that they just take care of themselves and will grow anywhere and take over. They have a good fight going on with bittersweet and we've torn them all out and they grow right back.
I love this view because even though I know it well, looking at it from this perspective, I picture a completely different setting than what I know to be true.
If you look closely, that's me by the front door. She didn't realize I was there when she took the picture and when she heard my scratching through the gravel I was weeding, I scared her! I'm surprised I'm not wearing of my signature hats but I was staying out of the sun, so I didn't need it, for a change.
These roses make me smile every year for a few reasons:
1. because they are so foolproof and so consistent.
2. because they remind me of every summer of my life.
3. because when they would bloom, my friend from Canada would visit and I always associate them with her!
And finally, we went to see Martina McBride in concert this week. It's a small place that seats about 2200 in an outdoor tent and we have seen some amazing people there. We like it because everyone's so close to the stage AND the stage slowly turns so the performers don't have their backs to us for long before they're back in front of us again!
She is TINY! She had on ridiculously tall heels and still was a peanut as she walked down the aisle. She had an enormous band with her and they all looked pretty crowded on that little stage but she was good.
She sang a lot of songs that are not her own, which is unusual for someone to do. She sang some of her classics, but I was surprised to hear her sing some jazz and some blues.
Smiles for getting great entertainment just 5 miles away in such a small venue!
Now, link up your posts about what made you smile this week!
I'm linking here:
http://www.myturnforus.com/2014/07/freedom-fridays-with-all-my-bloggy_17.html
http://mommifried.com/ladies-only-blog-share-link-party-summer-downtime/
Good job at the horse show! I am wondering if those roses can be transplanted? Probably require more sun than I have. I will just have to keep walking by and admiring yours.
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